Amazon Basics 1 Inch vs Gaiam Premium 6mm: Which One Should You Buy?

The Amazon Basics 1 Inch Extra Thick is exactly what the name says: 25.4 mm of soft NBR foam, at $38.4. The Gaiam Premium 6mm is 6 mm of sticky PVC at $29.98, and it holds OutdoorGearLab’s Best Buy award as Best First Yoga Mat.

Four times the thickness for $8.42 more looks like an easy call, and for yoga specifically it usually is not. Understanding why is the useful part of this page, because it applies to every thick foam mat sold with yoga in the title.

Kneeling on tile. Lying on a spine during core work. Hips on a hard floor during long seated holds. Physio exercises on a concrete basement floor. In all of those, an inch of soft foam is a genuine comfort and a 6 mm mat simply is not in the conversation.

That is what these mats are designed for, and they sell well because the need is real. The problem is that they are marketed as yoga mats and bought by people who then try to do warrior three on one.

Standing on one leg. Soft foam compresses unevenly under a foot, so your ankle corrects, overshoots a little, and corrects again. In a balance that is the difference between holding a pose and hopping out of it, and over a long standing sequence it is simply tiring.

Most people read this as their balance being worse than they thought. It is worth naming, because the fix is a firmer mat rather than more practice.

The Gaiam is soft foam too, and it is 6 mm rather than 25.4, so there is a quarter as much of it to sink into. GearLab still listed cushion compresses among its cons, which tells you the direction the material wants to go.

Better than $29.98 suggests. OutdoorGearLab gave it a Best Buy award as Best First Yoga Mat and praised it as budget-friendly, beginner-friendly, portable, with soft cushion and fun designs.

It also scored 62 out of 100 overall and 5 out of 10 for grip, with slippery wet grip, cushion compresses and moderate durability in the cons. Read together, that is a good entry mat you will outgrow rather than one that will let you down now, which is exactly what you want at this price.

Sticky PVC has some tack to it when dry, which textured foam does not really have at all; foam works through friction instead. GearLab rated the Gaiam 6 out of 10 dry and 4 wet.

Once you sweat, both give up, so a warm room or a fast flow will defeat either. Shoppers who care most about traction should skip this whole price bracket and look at rubber or an absorbent polyurethane surface.

The Amazon Basics is 74″ against the Gaiam’s 68″, six extra inches, which is unusual at this price and genuinely useful above about five foot eight. Both are 24″ wide.

The Gaiam is lighter at 3.3 pounds against 4.6, largely because there is four times as much material in the Amazon Basics. Neither is heavy, and the thick mat is the bulkier roll of the two.

Amazon Basics gives a one-year warranty. Gaiam advertises a lifetime guarantee. Neither covers what happens, which is compression and surface wear rather than a defect anyone will replace a mat for.

Soft NBR foam packs down under the points that carry weight, and its edges give up early if you drag the mat around. The Gaiam’s PVC thins under hands and heels instead, which is the moderate durability GearLab flagged. Budget for replacing either inside a couple of years of regular use.

Neither contains a scrap of natural rubber: the Amazon Basics is synthetic nitrile foam and the Gaiam is latex-free PVC. If an allergy is what steered you away from rubber mats, both of these are open to you.

That is worth knowing because most of the mats that solve the grip problem properly are built on natural rubber, and this whole price bracket is one of the few places where latex-free is the default rather than the exception.

Put a thin grippy mat on top of the thick foam one. Traction where your hands are, padding underneath for your knees, and it costs less than most single mats that try to do both.

It is not elegant and it is what a lot of home practitioners actually do on concrete or tile. If that appeals, the Amazon Basics is the better base of these two, and the mat that goes on top wants to be rubber rather than more foam. The Jade Harmony is the usual pick for that job.

Buy the Gaiam Premium 6mm if you are doing yoga, including standing poses. It is the mat an independent test actually recommends for beginners, it is lighter, and it is $8.42 cheaper. You will outgrow it in a year or two and that is fine.

Buy the Amazon Basics 1 Inch if your floor is hard and your work is mostly on knees, back, or elbows, or if you are buying it as a base layer for something grippier. Just go in knowing that the inch which makes it comfortable is the same inch that makes balances harder, and check the current price at Amazon along with the Gaiam, since both discount often.